Strategies of boundary opening in backsliding states: The case of Hungary

Democratic backsliding in some EU member states has led to a surge in literature on the processes of backsliding as well as the EU’s efforts to counter backsliding through its various rule of law tools. The efforts of domestic opposition actors to counter the dismantling of democracy and the rule of law, have, however, received less attention. In our case study on Hungary, we explore the strategies of three different groups of opposition stakeholders - Hungarian opposition Members of the European Parliament, opposition-led local governments/ cities and civil society/ NGOs - to bring the conflict to the EU level. Theoretically, we draw on the comparative politics literature on subnational authoritarianism, in particular on the theory of boundary control. According to this theory, opposition stakeholders in a subnational entity governed by authoritarian incumbents within an overall democratic federal polity will seek to nationalize the conflict by turning to the federal level. Being a non-state federal polity, we can expect the same dynamics to be present in the EU. Thus, we assume that the more the domestic space for national opposition actors is limited through "boundary control", the more they will turn to the EU to try to open these boundaries created and perpetuated by authoritarian governments at the national level. In our qualitative study, we first examine what boundary-opening strategies domestic opposition actors pursue at the EU level and second, how receptive the EU is, i.e. whether suggestions made by those actors have actually shaped the EU’s institutional responses. We rely on semi-structured interviews and primary documents. The empirical findings allow us to specify under what conditions the EU level can serve as an additional or substitute arena for opposition activity.